Sixth International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: Connecting Research and Practice Across Contexts

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Spanish and English

Two-Way Bilingual Immersion

Elementary (K-5)

This paper examines a school district that created a dual language program to increase racial integration between its Black and Hispanic students. An ethnographic study over five years describes the challenges that the district overcame and the challenges it still faces in relation to racial, linguistic and cultural dynamics.

Over the past two decades, the largest percentage of racial integration includes Black and Hispanic integration, while the smallest increase has been in White and Hispanic integration (Orfield, 2003). Hispanic school children have a greater likelihood of interacting with Black school children than they do with White school children due to racial segregation (Fairlie, 2012). This paper presents an ethnographic study over five years of a majority minority school district located in a predominantly Black suburb outside of Chicago that is now becoming predominantly Hispanic. In order to increase racial integration amongst students, the school board approved a plan in December 2013 to start a new dual language school (Spanish-English) in which the Hispanic students from the north side of the railroad tracks would be bussed to attend in a Black neighborhood on the south side of the tracks. The research study examines the role of race, language and culture at the macro and micro levels as it follows the design of the dual language program, the hurdles it had to overcome and its present fledgling state. Our data include extensive interviews from many key individuals and focus groups, documents analyzing the program design, notes from lengthy board meetings, classroom observations and survey data. The culture wars that ensued in this dual language program created fixed polarities between Black and Hispanic families that quickly ossified; however, the goal of the school community is to oscillate between polarities, to find a shared common core, to find cures for troublesome dichotomies, and to always move toward a better understanding of each other. The process of pluralization found in majority minority schools therefore requires new connections to be made between Black and Hispanic students, to invite conversation between Black and Hispanic families around language identity, and to navigate the diverse subcultures within each racial group.